IN 2009, 15% OF DUI BLOOD SAMPLES TESTED POSITIVE FOR MARIJUANA

Highway Patrol Officers On The Lookout For Drugged
Drivers

BUTTE - Montana law enforcement is focusing its training on detecting
drugged drivers with the increase in people obtaining medical
marijuana cards.

While police are trained to determine if a motorist is under the
influence of alcohol, the Montana Highway Patrol is putting emphasis
on training officers to determine if motorists are driving while under
the influence of prescription drugs or marijuana.

Kurt Sager, a drug recognition expert for the Montana Highway Patrol,
said some motorists are putting the public in danger by driving after
ingesting prescription drugs or medical marijuana. He said it is
illegal to driving under the influence of any drug, whether it is
legal or not.

"People think if it's a prescription or recommended by a doctor that
it can't be bad (to drive on)," Sager said.

Marijuana and some prescription drugs can impair a person's ability to
drive and can lead to crashes. Sager said marijuana-related crashes
have increased over the past three years in Montana.

In 2007, there were 32 traffic fatalities involving cannabis, Sager
said. The number of fatal accidents involving marijuana increased by
one in 2008, and last year there were 39 marijuana-related fatalities,
according to highway patrol statistics.

The Montana Crime Lab in Missoula received 1,480 blood samples in 2009
for DUI-related investigations, Sager reported. Of those samples, 231
tested positive for marijuana, which is about 15 percent of the samples.

"We have to let people know that it's not socially acceptable to
driving under the influence of any drug or alcohol," Sager said.

Officers are training to determine if a person is intoxicated on
alcohol by using the Standardized Field Sobriety Test (FST), which
involves having a motorist perform three exercises. Sager said
officers are being trained to detect possible drug impairment through
a test called Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE).

Under ARIDE, there are two additional exercises that are designed to
show clues of possible narcotics impairment.

Patrol Capt. Gary Becker of the Butte District said the training will
be a good tool for his troopers to use. Becker said they have probably
encountered motorists that were under the influence of some type of
drug, but didn't have the proper training to recognize it.

"The better we are at detecting impairment, the safer everyone on the
road is," Becker said.

The field sobriety test for alcohol impairment requires the driver to
walk a straight line and turn, balance on one leg and the horizontal
gaze nystagmus, which detects jerky movements of the eye. The ARIDE
tests adds an exercise that has the motorist stand with feet together,
arms at the sides and leaning the head back with eyes closed. Sager
said if the officer observes swaying that could be a sign of drug influence.

A second exercise has the subject follow the officer's finger in an
attempt to make the subject go cross-eyed. Sager explained that some
drugs make it impossible to go cross-eyed.

Samm Cox, Butte-Silver Bow chief deputy assistant county attorney,
said the more training police have in drug detection, the better
chance they will have getting DUI convictions.

"We get convictions by the better collection of evidence from a
trained officer," Cox said.

And while alcohol-related DUI charges often come with blood/alcohol
test results, Cox said he is just as likely to get convictions on
those suspected of driving under the influence of drugs or marijuana.